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Crews are attempting to locate four people believed to be trapped by rising flood waters in the area of West Blue Ridge and Swamp Rabbit Trail.
WHAT WE KNOW: More than 93, 600 acres have burned in the Woolsey Fire and it is now 30-percent contained. All evacuation orders for the city of Los Angeles have been lifted. But 149,000 people are still under evacuation orders. At least 435 structures were destroyed most of them homes. And the death toll stands at two.
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Pointing to his brother’s involvement in a lawsuit against Gov. Rick Scott, a federal judge has disqualified himself from one of the legal battles stemming from Florida’s election recount.
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued an order Saturday that said he was stepping aside from the case in which Democrats are challenging a state law that requires elections supervisors to toss out provisional and mail-in ballots if voters’ signatures don’t match the ones on file.
Hinkle was replaced in the case by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, who will hold a hearing Wednesday. Hinkle’s brother, Tallahassee attorney Donald Hinkle, filed a lawsuit last year seeking to force Scott to disclose more information about his financial assets.
A Leon County circuit judge in February rejected Scott’s request to dismiss the case, and the dispute is pending in a state appeals court. Robert Hinkle held an initial conference Friday in the ballot-signature case before disqualifying himself from further participation.
“After conducting the scheduling conference and entering an order on November 9, I remembered that my brother is a party to a lawsuit involving Governor Rick Scott,” Hinkle wrote in the order of disqualification. “This would not affect my handling of this case, but a reasonable person might think otherwise.” Scott is locked in a recount in his bid to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. In the federal lawsuit, Democratic lawyers contended that “tens of thousands” of Florida voters are “at risk of disenfranchisement” due to a “standardless signature matching process.”
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The League of Women Voters of Florida and Common Cause Florida filed a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to prevent Gov. Rick Scott from using his official powers to influence ballot counting or the certification of results of his hotly contested race for U.S. Senate.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The League of Women Voters of Florida and Common Cause Florida filed a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to prevent Gov. Rick Scott from using his official powers to influence ballot counting or the certification of results of his hotly contested race for U.S. Senate.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. district court in Tallahassee, came amid a recount in Scott’s race with Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson --- and amid a torrent of litigation about ballot counting. Scott and his campaign have alleged irregularities in Democrat-rich Broward and Palm Beach counties, including Scott last week asking the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate.
As governor, Scott’s administration includes the Department of State, which oversees elections. Also, Scott serves on the Florida Elections Canvassing Commission, which is scheduled Nov. 20 to certify the results of the general election.
The League of Women Voters and Common Cause are seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction that would prevent Scott from “engaging, in his capacity as governor or using his authority as governor, in any decisions, directives, control, or influence, either direct or indirect, over the processing and counting of ballots in the 2018 Florida election for U.S. Senate, including but not limited to enjoining defendant (Scott) from participating, in his role as a member of the Elections Canvassing Commission or otherwise, in the certification of the results of the 2018 Florida election for U.S. Senate,” according to a court filing.
Roger Stone pal Jerome Corsi says Mueller is planning to indict him
"I'm 72 years and I'm afraid they're going to lock me up and put me in solitary confinement," Corsi said.
Jerome Corsi, an associate of Roger Stone, says he expects to be indicted for perjury as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian election meddling.
Corsi, who has been questioned over his knowledge of WikiLeaks obtaining hacked emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, said Mueller's team delivered the news at a meeting about a week ago.
"They told me they were going to indict me," he told NBC News in a phone interview Monday.
"This was one of the most confusing and frightening things I've experienced. I'm 72 years and I'm afraid they're going to lock me up and put me in solitary confinement."
NBC News reported late last month that Mueller's office had obtained communications suggesting that Corsi was aware in advance that emails from former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta had been stolen and handed to WikiLeaks.
"I don't recall ever meeting [WikiLeaks founder] Julian Assange or getting information from anyone about what he had including the Podesta emails," Corsi said Monday. "But they have all your emails and phone records…They're very good at the perjury trap."
Mueller's spokesman, Peter Carr, declined to comment.
In a statement, Roger Stone told NBC News, "
My attorneys have fully reviewed all my written communications with Dr. Corsi. When those aren't viewed out of context they prove everything I have said under oath regarding my interaction with Dr. Corsi is true. It is possible to take individual communications out of context to create a false impression to a grand jury. Such a case would be weak and would fail."
Added Stone, "Dr. Corsi strikes me as a man who has been squeezed hard but refuses to do anything but tell the truth which is why they may be indicting him."
Corsi is one of nearly a dozen Stone associates who have been summoned by Mueller to appear before his Washington, D.C,. grand jury, according to people familiar with the investigation.
A conservative author and commentator, Corsi has denied having any advance knowledge or playing any role in the hacking and release of Podesta's emails in October.
Corsi told NBC News that he "figured out" that Podesta’s emails would be released in October after reading the initial WikiLeaks dump of Democratic National Committee emails and finding few Podesta messages among them. He said he connected the dots and anticipated they would be published later by Wikileaks.
Corsi said he's cooperated extensively with Mueller's team in grueling interview sessions.
"They seemed determined to find a connection with WikiLeaks and me," Corsi told NBC News.
"Forty hours, six prosecutors, plus an army of FBI. There were nine people sitting on the other side of the conference table. My mind was just mush," he added.
Corsi is considered to be the founder of the so-called Birther movement focused on amplifying the false claim that Barack Obama was not a U.S. citizen. In 2017, Corsi became the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for InfoWars, a website run by Alex Jones, whose inflammatory lies about the 2014 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have gotten him banned from YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Corsi no longer works there.
WASHINGTON — The state of Maryland plans to ask a federal judge on Tuesday for an order declaring that Rod Rosenstein is the acting attorney general — not Matt Whitaker, who was appointed to that position last week after the forced resignation of Jeff Sessions.
If the judge does as Maryland asks, ruling that Whitaker cannot serve as attorney general, it would be a blow to President Donald Trump, who bypassed Rosenstein in favor of someone who has repeatedly criticized Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian election meddling.
The Justice Department would immediately appeal any such ruling, and the case could be on a fast track to the Supreme Court.
Whitaker's appointment has been widely criticized because he now oversees the special counsel's investigation into Russian election meddling and the president. While serving as a conservative commentator, he questioned the scope of the investigation and said there was no Trump campaign collusion with the Russians. For that reason, several congressional Democrats have urged him to recuse himself from overseeing Mueller's investigation.
Maryland's attorney general, Brian Frosh, a Democrat, argues in court documents to be filed Tuesday that if Trump had the kind of authority the White House claims, he could fire the attorney general "then appoint a carefully selected senior employee who he was confident would terminate or otherwise severely limit the investigation."
Maryland argues that Whitaker's selection by Trump violated federal law and exceeded the appointment authority in the Constitution.
Trump named Whitaker acting attorney general under a law known as the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. It allows a president to fill a vacant Cabinet position with a senior employee of the affected agency. Whitaker fits in that category, because he had been the chief of staff to Sessions.
But Maryland urges the judge to rule that a separate federal law actually governs what happens when the office of attorney general is vacant. It provides that the deputy attorney general takes over, which would be Rosenstein. As the state sees it, the Vacancies Reform Act is more general law, which must give way whenever a specific law provides for filling a Cabinet-level vacancy.
The state also argues that the appointment of Whitaker violates a provision of the Constitution that specifies top positions in the government can be filled only through presidential nomination and confirmation by the Senate. Because Whitaker's nomination bypassed that process, the state says, he cannot serve as acting attorney general.
"It is troubling, to say the least, that the president is attempting to fill a 'vacancy' he created himself with a 'temporary' appointment that might last for many months or years," says Frosh, "especially when, as there, the temporary appointee has not been confirmed by the Senate."
Maryland's legal papers say Whitaker's appointment marks the first time since 1868, when Congress passed a succession law for the Justice Department, that someone named to be acting attorney general was not already serving in a Senate-confirmed position.
The state's motion comes in a lawsuit over the future of Obamacare, seeking a ruling that the Affordable Care Act remains enforceable despite attempts by the Trump administration to shut it down. The case is the mirror image of a lawsuit filed by Texas and 17 other states. It asks a different federal judge to declare that the health care law is no longer enforceable.
Maryland's Obamacare lawsuit named several defendants, including Sessions, who was attorney general when the case was filed in September. With Sessions gone, Maryland says, the judge overseeing the lawsuit should declare that the attorney general defendant is Rod Rosenstein, not Matt Whitaker.
